Commission staff missing in Haiti

Three staff members of the European Union’s delegation to Haiti are still missing following last week’s earthquake, the European Commission has confirmed.

On Saturday (16 January), the Spanish authorities said that United Nations police on Haiti had identified the body of Pilar Juárez Boa, the only EU citizen among the three, the delegation’s chief of operations. This morning, however, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Spain’s foreign minister, said in Brussels that the DNA analysis of the body had been inconclusive and that there may have been an error in identification.

Juárez, was in a meeting at the UN headquarters in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince when the earthquake struck last Tuesday. The UN building, together with much of the city, was levelled by the powerful earthquake, which killed tens of thousands. Two unidentified local staff of the delegation are also still missing.

Among the dead is Hédi Annabi, the UN’s chief of mission, and 40 other UN workers have also been confirmed dead. Annabi, a Tunisian diplomat, was the first mission chief to die on duty since Brazil’s Sergio Vieira de Mello, who died in a powerful bomb attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003, together with 14 UN staff.

EU development ministers are today meeting in Brussels to discuss emergency aid as well as the medium- to long-term needs on Haiti. The meeting is chaired by Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief. Ashton will travel to New York on Wednesday to co-ordinate the crisis response with the UN. In a statement, the Commission said that Ashton would continue “to co-ordinate the EU’s contributions and activities with the EU member states and international partners”. Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, is to travel to Haiti on Wednesday, a spokesperson said.